So this is just some idle speculation about the various types of planetoids in the Imperium.

We know of at three distinct variants so far. All-rounders, beam heavy, and planetary assault planetoids.

-The presence of the beam heavy planetoid class, would suggest that for balance there may just be a missile heavy polar opposite to balance it out, as opposed to the Asgard style all rounders.

-the presence of planetary assault pplanetoid, would also suggest that there may just be a parasite heavy "carrier" planetoid. After all, even Dahak #11 from the old Empire carried what something like 10 or so all up battleships, plus a few score lighter cruisers and fighters alone. And the newer Imperium ships are considerably larger, and their weapons were also much more efficient leading to more deadly parasite craft.

The carrier planetoid may not necessarily add all that much all up combat power against other Imperium ships, but they knew the Achuultani were numerous so being able to have say a squadron of planetoids drop out of supralight and dropping several hundred parasites to backup Asgard's and their own parasites would be one helluva force multiplier.

Well, the biggest issue with sublight parasites is that they can't retreat easily - it's even worse than LACs from the Honorverse, as the parasites can't just sit inside a larger ship's hyper generator bubble(Separated objects in Dahakverse hyperspace fare poorly).

Another thing to consider is there was an Imperial civil war. Any kind of planetoid could easily blow planets up and they thus preferred to place military bases on airless rocks, but civil war changed this, as that practice was to prevent aliens from blowing their planets up. The Imperial factions, however, couldn't very well go around blowing up planets with humans and they started basing around civilians. So that called for planetary assault specialisation, something that they wouldn't have bothered with against the Achuultani.

In that vein, what would have compelled the construction of heavy parasite carriers?

On the other hand, even with that one system surviving the Third Imperium's fall(Birhat?), it appears they didn't learn very much about the Achuultani. Particularly the highly static nature of the AI domination of their culture. So they did not know the Achultaani wouldn't be even stronger on their next visit, which might allow the scattergunning of design specialities.

It depends how they planned to use the planetoids. Just as with naval combat, working in fleets allows more specialised individual units whilst singletons have to be able to do everything.

munroburton wrote:Well, the biggest issue with sublight parasites is that they can't retreat easily - it's even worse than LACs from the Honorverse, as the parasites can't just sit inside a larger ship's hyper generator bubble(Separated objects in Dahakverse hyperspace fare poorly).

Another thing to consider is there was an Imperial civil war. Any kind of planetoid could easily blow planets up and they thus preferred to place military bases on airless rocks, but civil war changed this, as that practice was to prevent aliens from blowing their planets up. The Imperial factions, however, couldn't very well go around blowing up planets with humans and they started basing around civilians. So that called for planetary assault specialisation, something that they wouldn't have bothered with against the Achuultani.

In that vein, what would have compelled the construction of heavy parasite carriers?

On the other hand, even with that one system surviving the Third Imperium's fall(Birhat?), it appears they didn't learn very much about the Achuultani. Particularly the highly static nature of the AI domination of their culture. So they did not know the Achultaani wouldn't be even stronger on their next visit, which might allow the scattergunning of design specialities.

It depends how they planned to use the planetoids. Just as with naval combat, working in fleets allows more specialised individual units whilst singletons have to be able to do everything.

I can see those points, but that very lack of knowing what weapons their enemy used may have led to platform proliferation wouldn't it? The Imperium military would have been lucky to follow the old Sun Tzu proverb (even if they predated him by millenia) of If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

They knew themselves (or damn well should), but nearly nothing about their enemy except they like to use many big rocks on planets in their genocide.

That should have provoked at least a partial inclination to accept almost any form of military weapon, if only because due to the size of the Empire (and population base) they could afford to shotgun weapons designs into thousands of concepts as long as they can be properly weaponized, until they could acquire hard data. Once hard data is obtained, they would then have been able to properly streamline production to effective designs.

The presence of a beam heavy design by the Imperium for example, is very shocking. The all-rounder Asgard-class seems incredibly good, and like you pointed out, by the civil war they had civilians on planets to either assault or defend so a planetary assault planetoid also makes sense.

The possibility of a missile-heavy opposite of the beams should actually have been even more powerful than the beam-heavy. The Imperium was heavily oriented around the hyper missile, and Imperial technology only needs a source of raw material (such as asteroids) and they can replenish their missile supplies very easily. Spend a month at any asteroid belt, and you've replenished thousands of hyper missiles nice and easy without even needing to return to a shipyard or arms factory.

I don't doubt for a moment that the Asgard all-rounders made up the bulk of the Fourth Imperium fleets, simply because that allowed them to handle virtually anything. But the fact they were also specifically building to resist future Achuultani threat (with my above mentioned lack of data), they couldnt or shouldn't have relied on a one class pony fleet.

Somtaaw wrote:So this is just some idle speculation about the various types of planetoids in the Imperium.

We know of at three distinct variants so far. All-rounders, beam heavy, and planetary assault planetoids.

-The presence of the beam heavy planetoid class, would suggest that for balance there may just be a missile heavy polar opposite to balance it out, as opposed to the Asgard style all rounders.

-the presence of planetary assault pplanetoid, would also suggest that there may just be a parasite heavy "carrier" planetoid. After all, even Dahak #11 from the old Empire carried what something like 10 or so all up battleships, plus a few score lighter cruisers and fighters alone. And the newer Imperium ships are considerably larger, and their weapons were also much more efficient leading to more deadly parasite craft.

The carrier planetoid may not necessarily add all that much all up combat power against other Imperium ships, but they knew the Achuultani were numerous so being able to have say a squadron of planetoids drop out of supralight and dropping several hundred parasites to backup Asgard's and their own parasites would be one helluva force multiplier.

Thoughts and reasoned debate welcome.

My question that could match up with a carrier planetoid is how small can a hyper-capable parasite be? A carrier able to launch 10, 50 however many number of short ranged parasites could substantially shorten the search for the current Achuultani homeworlds whenever the search finally goes out.

My question that could match up with a carrier planetoid is how small can a hyper-capable parasite be? A carrier able to launch 10, 50 however many number of short ranged parasites could substantially shorten the search for the current Achuultani homeworlds whenever the search finally goes out.

One the one hand, that fictionverse includes hyper grenades. OTOH, they didn't have hyper on Dahak's carried ships

My question that could match up with a carrier planetoid is how small can a hyper-capable parasite be? A carrier able to launch 10, 50 however many number of short ranged parasites could substantially shorten the search for the current Achuultani homeworlds whenever the search finally goes out.

One the one hand, that fictionverse includes hyper grenades. OTOH, they didn't have hyper on Dahak's carried ships

No they don't. However the fusion of Dahak's Empire, the later Empire and Achuultani tech could make it possible for hyper capable parasites in the low mile long size. The idea as I thought of it was the carrier drops into a convenient star system then sends her brood out to the surrounding systems. A parasite able to make 10, 20, 30 light years one way could substantially cut down the number of scout globes needed to find the home worlds. Since the globes wouldn't be needed for scouting, they could be held together for fleet actions or backstopping the scout formations as needed.

It seems like you can launch small things into hyper (hyper grenades, hyper missiles, that warp rifle that puts its targets in hyperspace) but for something to be able to carry its hyper generator with it, it has to be huge.

It's an interesting question: just how small could you make a hyper-capable ship? If it were small enough to be carried by a planetoid, well and good, if not, then you have a problem. On the subject of parasite warships going to another system, they would have to be carried there, and then would not be able to report, as they do not carry hypercom. I have wondered for some time if the stranded middies would have to build a ship to get out of the Pardal System, that being if they could not build a hypercom. Remember that the Dahak was stuck in Earth orbit for tens of thousands of years for lack of Hypercom parts, and I have always wondered why the middies could build a Hypercom when Dahak could not.

Unfortunately that part of the story was short circuited, but it's entirely possible that they didn't have to build one - they just had to turn it on. If it was part of the facility that was turned into the Temple, the fruitcakes probably didn't bother to rip it out. Or tell the maintenance systems to let it rot.

zuluwiz wrote:It's an interesting question: just how small could you make a hyper-capable ship? If it were small enough to be carried by a planetoid, well and good, if not, then you have a problem. On the subject of parasite warships going to another system, they would have to be carried there, and then would not be able to report, as they do not carry hypercom. I have wondered for some time if the stranded middies would have to build a ship to get out of the Pardal System, that being if they could not build a hypercom. Remember that the Dahak was stuck in Earth orbit for tens of thousands of years for lack of Hypercom parts, and I have always wondered why the middies could build a Hypercom when Dahak could not.